Friday, September 12, 2008

Radiohead Talk Mercury, Return to Studio


About 1 minute in to their Santa Barbara finale (webcast for all of the high-speed connected world to see), and thus, North America closer, Frat and I had no idea what they were playing...and where it was headed. And then "Idioteque" bounced and bubbled and ripped through us. The dawn of a new age: there we were in my living room, gathered with friends, having conversation, but more often then not riveted to the screen and immersed in a global show. Throw away your television.

It turns out these guys have more for us. They will return to the studio once their Japan leg wraps and somehow try to top a year of music I will not soon forget (an 18 track album of epic proportions, an ongoing series of webcast shows, a wholly original and breathtaking score to one of the greatest films in recent memory, and a tour that pulled out all of the stops). Or maybe, in perfect Radiohead fashion, they won't try to top anything, they'll just do something unique and different...and keep on keeping on.

From the BBC:

Radiohead have announced exclusively to 6 Music that they’re in the process of writing a new album.

After losing out to Elbow for the Mercury Music Prize on Tuesday night (9 September) they told us they’d taken time out of playing live to put new tracks down and would be heading to the studio in the near future.

Colin Greenwood said they'd be heading back into the studio when they'd completed their current world tour: “We’ve finished the main bulk of it and we’re off to Japan in a couple of weeks to finish it off.”

And fully enthused about writing new stuff, Ed O'Brien chimed in: “We’re still talking about doing some stuff and we’re really excited about it. First we came off tour to do some writing and we wanted to just carry on doing it because it was so brilliant.”

"We’ve finished the main bulk of it and we’re off to Japan in a couple of weeks to finish it off." Colin Greenwood

The band didn’t join the other acts in performing at the Mercury Music Awards ceremony earlier in the week

However, they agreed that the Mercury was one of the most important accolades in the music business: “We’ve been on tour in America so we’re culturally a bit out of it but you come here and you realise that actually it’s a bit deal. When you hear Guy Garvey go this means everything to us you go, er, yeah, you’re right. It beats the hell out of the Brits and the other ones.”

Colin and Ed were also really happy that Elbow had won it: “We've been on tour with Elbow we've played festivals with them and they're lovely people. They've made a brilliant record with The Seldom Seen Kid. It really couldn't have happened to more deserving people, but most of the shortlist was great this year.”
MP3: Thom Yorke - "After the Gold Rush" (Bridge School, 2002)

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